Fishing

Anglers have a way of romanticizing their battles with fish and of forgetting that the fish has a hook in his mouth, his gullet, or his belly and that his gameness is really an extreme of panic in which he runs, leaps, and pulls to get away until he dies. ~ E. Hemingway.

Fishing is the activity of trying to catch fish. Fish are normally caught in the wild. Techniques for catching fish include hand gathering, spearing, netting, angling and trapping. Fishing with an "angle" (fish hook) attached to a fishing line, usually attached to a fishing rod and reel, as called angling.

Contents

I often went fishing up in Maine during the summer. Personally I am very fond of strawberries and cream, but I have found that for some strange reason, fish prefer worms. So when I went fishing, I didn't think about what I wanted. I thought about what they wanted. I didn't bait the hook with strawberries and cream. Rather, I dangled a worm or grasshopper in front of the fish and said: "Wouldn't you like to have that?" Why not use the same common sense when fishing for people?

Roberto Clemente wasn't much of a fisherman. When he was a kid, he was working when he wasn't playing baseball, and when he wasn't doing either, he was sleeping, with time out somewhere along the line for eating. After he became a star, he continued to be too busy to do much fishing even though the waters around his native Puerto Rico are teeming with game fish. Winter ball, his business on the Island, and other and varied activities gave him little time for leisure. Among the latter were his interest in kids, particularly underprivileged kids. And he knew that kids like to go fishing. Last summer Roberto beamed, his dark eyes sparkling, when he discussed with this writer a project underway at his home in Puerto Rico. "We are building a pond and we will stock it with fish so that the kids can come there to fish and have fun. It goes down to a big rock and then makes a sharp turn. It is 330 feet down to the rock and almost that much after the turn." The pond, he said, would be stocked with several species of fresh-water fish indigenous to Puerto Rico, "and trout, too," he added. He didn't say how the kids would get out into the country to the pond to fish. He didn't say where they would get the fishing tackle and bait if they didn't have any of their own. He didn't have to. Knowing Roberto Clemente we knew that he'd get them there, furnish the bait and tackle, and probably throw in a picnic, too. He'll be missed by a lot more people than baseball fans.

Like many fly fishermen in western Montana where the summer days are almost Arctic in length, I often do not start fishing until the cool of the evening. Then in the Arctic half-light of the canyon, all existence fades to a being with my soul and memories and the sounds of the Big Blackfoot River and a four-count rhythm and the hope that a fish will rise. Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it. The river was cut by the world's great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time. On some of those rocks are timeless raindrops. Under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs. I am haunted by waters.

Anglers have a way of romanticizing their battles with fish and of forgetting that the fish has a hook in his mouth, his gullet, or his belly and that his gameness is really an extreme of panic in which he runs, leaps, and pulls to get away until he dies. It would seem to be enough advantage to the angler that the fish has the hook in his mouth rather than the angler.

A rod twelve feet long and a ring of wire,A winder and barrel, will help thy desireIn killing a Pike; but the forked stick,With a slit and a bladder,—and that other fine trick,Which our artists call snap, with a goose or a duck,—Will kill two for one, if you have any luck;The gentry of Shropshire do merrily smile,To see a goose and a belt the fish to beguile;When a Pike suns himselfe and a-frogging doth go,The two-inched hook is better, I know,Than the ord'nary snaring: but still I must cry,When the Pike is at home, minde the cookery.

Thomas Barker, The Art of Angling (1820 reprint of the 1657 edition); Barker was a chef for Lord Montague who wrote various poems instructing the reader how to catch and cook fish.

For angling-rod he took a sturdy oak;For line, a cable that in storm ne'er broke;His hook was such as heads the end of poleTo pluck down house ere fire consumes it whole;This hook was bated with a dragon's tail,—And then on rock he stood to bob for whale.

Down and back at day dawn, Tramp from lake to lake,Washing brain and heart clean Every step we take.Leave to Robert Browning Beggars, fleas, and vines;Leave to mournful Ruskin Popish Apennines,Dirty stones of Venice, And his gas lamps seven,We've the stones of Snowdon And the lamps of heaven.

I have twice gone fishing with rod and line just because other boys asked me to, but this sport was soon made impossible for me by the treatment of the worms that were put on the hook for bait, and the wrenching of the mouths of the fishes that were caught. I gave it up, and even found courage enough to dissuade other boys from going.

Angling may be said to be so like the mathematics that it can never be fully learnt.

Author's Preface.

As no man is born an artist, so no man is born an angler.

Author's Preface.

I shall stay him no longer than to wish * * * that if he be an honest angler, the east wind may never blow when he goes a fishing.

Author's Preface.

Angling is somewhat like Poetry, men are to be born so.

Part I, Chapter I.

Doubt not but angling will prove to be so pleasant, that it will prove to be, like virtue, a reward to itself.

Part I, Chapter I.

I am, Sir, a brother of the angle.

Part I, Chapter I.

It [angling] deserves commendations; * * * it is an art worthy the knowledge and practice of a wise man.

Part I, Chapter I.

An excellent angler, and now with God.

Part I, Chapter IV.

We may say of angling as Dr. Boteler said of strawberries: "Doubtless God could have made a better berry, but doubtless God never did"; and so, (if I might be judge,) God never did make a more calm, quiet, innocent recreation than angling.

Part I, Chapter V. (Boteler was Dr. William Butler. See Fuller's—Worthies. Also Roger Williams—Key into the Language of America, p. 98).

Thus use your frog: * * * put your hook, I mean the arming wire, through his mouth, and out at his gills, and then with a fine needle and silk sow the upper part of his leg with only one stitch to the arming wire of your hook, or tie the frog's leg above the upper joint to the armed wire; and in so doing use him as though you loved him.

Part I, Chapter VIII.

O! the gallant fisher's life, It is the best of any:'Tis full of pleasure, void of strife, And 'tis beloved by many. Other joys Are but toys; Only this, Lawful is: For our skill Breeds no ill,But content and pleasure.

Chapter XVI.

And upon all that are lovers of virtue; and dare trust in his providence; and be quiet; and go a-angling.

Part I, Chapter XXI.

Of recreation there is noneSo free as fishing is, alone;All other pastimes do not lessThan mind and body, both possess: My hand alone my work can do; So I can fish and study too.

The Angler's Song.

The first men that our Saviour dearDid choose to wait upon Him here,Blest fishers were; and fish the lastFood was, that He on earth did taste:I therefore strive to follow those,Whom He to follow Him hath chose.